Patient Nurse Read Online Free

student seemed to be the only people in residence who owned cars. There was a MARTA bus stop on the corner, and here in midtown, everything was accessible. Noreen, however, liked the freedom her car gave her. It was small and old, but it managed to keep going, thanks to the mechanic down the block who charged only a tiny fee totinker with it when necessary. While she made a good salary at the hospital, Noreen still had to cut corners to make ends meet.
    She’d never lacked for material things when she lived with her aunt and uncle and Isadora, but her life had been emotionally empty. Here, with her few possessions around her, she was at least independent. And if she lacked for love and companionship, that was nothing new. She wondered occasionally if her aunt had minded having to hire a housekeeper and social secretary after Noreen’s expulsion from the family home. She’d never had to pay her niece for these services. It would never have occurred to her.
    Ramon had moved to a new apartment, she recalled, after Isadora’s tragic death. He hadn’t been able to face going home to the scene of his beloved wife’s last hours, for which he still blamed Noreen. She’d tried and tried to make him listen to the truth, just after it happened. But, maddened with grief and pain, he’d refused to let her speak. Perhaps he preferred the heartless image he’d endowed her with since their first meeting. God knew, he’d never really looked at her anyway.
    She recalled with pain her first sight of him, getting out of a stately Jaguar in front of her aunt and uncle’s huge, sprawling mansion. His black hair had shone in the sun. His tall, athletic form in a staid gray suit had made him seem leaner, more imposing. As he entered the house, the impact of his liquid, coal black eyes in a handsome, blemishless dark face had caused Noreen’s heart to stop dead for an instant. She’d never known such sensations in her life. She’d flushed and stammered, and Ramon had smiled almost mockingly at her momentary weakness. It had been, she recalledpainfully, as if he knew that her knees had gone weak in that instant. He was worldly, so perhaps her reaction was one to which he’d become accustomed. But God knew, amusement had been his only expression. He’d turned right away from Noreen after the quick, indifferent introduction, right back to his beautiful Isadora.
    â€œDon’t think that he noticed you at all,” Isadora had said mockingly that evening, “despite the calf’s eyes you were making at him. Imagine a man like that looking twice at you!” she’d added, laughing.
    Noreen hadn’t been able to meet those demeaning blue eyes. “I know he belongs to you, Isadora,” she’d said quietly, tidying up after her cousin.
    â€œJust remember it,” came the curt reply. “I’m going to marry him.”
    â€œDoes he know?” Noreen couldn’t resist asking the dry question.
    â€œOf course not,” her cousin murmured absently. “But I’m going to, just the same.”
    And she had, only two months later, with her aunt as matron of honor and one of her set as bridesmaid.
    Ramon, courteous to a fault even to strangers, had puzzled over the selection. Two days before the wedding, while Isadora enthused over her bridal gown with her mother, Ramon had paused in the doorway of the kitchen, where Noreen was taking tiny tea cakes out of the oven, to ask why she wasn’t participating in the wedding.
    â€œMe?” Noreen had asked, sweating from the heat of the kitchen, where she’d been sent to make pastries for afternoon coffee.
    He’d frowned at her appearance. “Do you never wearanything except jeans and those—” he waved an expressive dark hand “—sweatshirts?”
    She’d averted her eyes. “They’re comfortable for working around the house,” she’d replied.
    She could